Let me use an example to illustrate what I'm after. I'll use my guy, Lee Evans. A player who I think would potentially demand a lot of money on the open market in our league, with his speed skills, but a player who plays for much less in Buffalo and is under contract for another 2-3 years.

Let me preface this by saying, the only players that are eligible for "random" selection are players with "Max $" contract demands.
As commish, I would select 1 or 2 "holdouts" each season. The players would enter a "negotiating period" with their principal owners. Instead of letting their players hit the open market, teams could opt to simply make that player the highest paid player at their position, and re-work their deal right then and there. That player would become the new highest paid player at their position and return to their teams. The downside is obviously that instead of getting that player on the cheap for a few more seasons they have to pay them then and there. So the owner writes up a new contract with signing bonus and salary and years starting in the year of the upcoming season.

Or teams could trade the player, forcing the new team and new owner to sign the player to a new contract in the same manner as above.

Or teams could let the player walk. In reality it would be a holdout and the player would sit out the season a la Vincent Jackson but since we don't want to let players like this sit in FA all year, we'll just say that the team cut the player and he's now a FA, free to be bidded on.

I personally like the idea (otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up.) I would be in strict control of the players who get nominated and being the fair commish that I am, I wouldn't be out to totally screw over people or the computer for that matter, when nominating hold out candidates.

What do you guys think? It could be implemented as early as our first offseason or it could wait until our second offseason.

For one reason, it adds more work, that I don't feel is neccesary because of the second reason.

The second reason is that we already have a pretty strict salary cap. Now, I may be wrong because it's my first season playing like this, but isn't the cap in there to make owners have tough decisions? Especially those owners that do well and have a lot of players progress - making them unsignable?

Right now I'm right at the cap maximum. I don't know how that will play out, but I'm sure I'm going to have to make some decisions.

Also.. I need to read more on the offseason - I don't remember it all - don't players already demand more money if they achieve something (lead the league or team). I guess I shouldn't bring this up without looking at it first, but bottom line was that I thought the Cap already made things interesting? Maybe I'm wrong?

For one reason, it adds more work, that I don't feel is neccesary because of the second reason.

The second reason is that we already have a pretty strict salary cap. Now, I may be wrong because it's my first season playing like this, but isn't the cap in there to make owners have tough decisions? Especially those owners that do well and have a lot of players progress - making them unsignable?

Right now I'm right at the cap maximum. I don't know how that will play out, but I'm sure I'm going to have to make some decisions.

Also.. I need to read more on the offseason - I don't remember it all - don't players already demand more money if they achieve something (lead the league or team). I guess I shouldn't bring this up without looking at it first, but bottom line was that I thought the Cap already made things interesting? Maybe I'm wrong?

Click to expand...

The salary cap is certainly intricate enough to force people to make some tough decisions. This isn't something thats going to happen on a large scale. As I mentioned, it would only happen to 1 or 2 players per offseason and it would only happen to Max$ players who are currently under contract.

Players will have their Max$ demands still, sure, but this is sort of an acceleration of the those demands. Normally the owner has the luxury of waiting until the players contract was up before deciding whether or not to pay him the large sum of money he demands. This accelerates that and forces them to make a decision now instead of 3 or 4 seasons down the road.

Regardless, thats why we have the discussions. Thanks for the input. I'd like to get some more peoples opinions obviously.